English equivalents for "Wiege der Kultur/Kunst"

Does someone know a good english equivalent for "Wiege der kultur" as in "Alejandra entscheidet sich nach Europa zu reisen, um die "Wiege der Kunst kennenzulernen" ? I'm trying to translate a friend's bio, god knows why since my german sucks. thanks in advance...

"Racist bunch of crap" ?

No seriously, I'm just working with what I've got.
Oh, meant "Wiege der Kunst", should have used copy/paste function throughout.

The "Wiege" of human culture was, as far as science can tell, in the African Rift Valley.

Should some random Kenyan living in Germany übertrümpf Frau Angela Ferkel?
Von mir aus, it's only menschlich.

That's not really helpful. I regret commiting to this even though it's only five sentences.

well, it sounds a bit pretentious and ethno-centric even in German...
maybe something along the lines of "visiting the places where the [specific art, culture, whatever] originated from"

Cradle of humanity, civilisation, culture, art ...

"Fount of culture" is slightly less all-embracing than "cradle of culture"; "cradle" is used a lot, though, pretentious and pompous though it is.

nucleus of art and culture
roots of Western art and culture (I sort of like that: Alejandra decided to travel to Europe to dig down to the roots of Western art and culture, follow their branches and see how and where they blossomed- Too flowery? Bah!)

Scales of culture / arts

@ MD - that's Waage, not Wiege. Although you do weigh (wiegen) things on them.
Mit einer Waage wiegt man Waren.

Sb just trying to wiegle my way out of this one